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The Political, Social Roots of the Makhlouf and Assad Families

Rami Makhlouf with Syrian businessmen in Damascus. Asharq Al-Awsat
Rami Makhlouf with Syrian businessmen in Damascus. Asharq Al-Awsat
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The Political, Social Roots of the Makhlouf and Assad Families

Rami Makhlouf with Syrian businessmen in Damascus. Asharq Al-Awsat
Rami Makhlouf with Syrian businessmen in Damascus. Asharq Al-Awsat

On April 20, Syrian businessman Rami Makhlouf, the maternal cousin of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, began posting statements and videos on Facebook criticizing the regime. This was striking: in the past decades, it was uncommon to see anyone, whether a businessman, politician, or military commander, daring to criticize the security forces and the regime, directly or indirectly, while living in Syria. So, two questions must be asked: Why did Rami Makhlouf, a wealthy businessman and the president's cousin, rebel? How could one voicing such criticism from Damascus be still free? To answer those two questions, it is important to understand the historic relationship between the Makhlouf family and the Assad family.

Makhlouf himself is known for amassing massive wealth inside and outside the country. According to a former economy official in Syria, his wealth is equivalent to eight percent of Syria's GDP, which is $62 billion.

Economic-Social Context

In his media appearances, Rami Makhlouf tried to appeal to the Alawites by presenting himself as the voice of the Syrian coastal region, especially the poor, religiously-devout, and those loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. This region, a stronghold of the Assad regime, suffered in the nine-year-long war, reportedly incurring more than 100,000 deaths.

In order to understand the historic context, it is important to highlight the Makhlouf family’s history and relationships with others. The Makhlouf family belongs to the al-Haddadin tribe, which is mostly Alawite land-owners in the Syrian coastal region. They controlled villages, similar to other feudal families.

In 1958, the Makhlouf family made the difficult decision of agreeing to marry their young daughter to a young air force pilot named Hafez Al-Assad, who was from a different tribe, al-Kalbiyah, that descended from rural regions. Assad was a member of the military at the time Anisa was studying in a French-managed monastery.

Hafiz and Anisa's marriage would impact Syria's modern history for the next six decades. The Makhlouf family forged close relations with rising military men in the predominantly Alawite countryside, while Hafez al-Assad gained legitimacy among tribes and social circles in his birthplace.

After Assad ascended to the presidency in 1970, Anisa held the title of the first lady even though she never used that title and refrained from appearing in public events. Undoubtedly, this marriage spared the Makhlouf family from extinction, which was the fate of other feudal Alawite families.

One of the key cards that Hafez used to consolidate his power was ending classism. He sought to create alternative social classes composed of farmers and the marginalized who rose to power through the army and security forces. The Duba and Khuli families exemplified that: General 'Ali Duba took charge of the military intelligence, and General Muhammad Khuli commanded the air force. Similarly, Assad became closer to the clerics. The Haydar family, for example, gained influence General 'Ali Haydar was given control over the army's special forces.

Assad rose to power, taking control of the army, security, and political apparatus. His brother-in-law, on the other hand, took control of the economy. Muhammad Makhlouf, Anisa's brother, started at the state-owned tobacco company Regie, and went on to sponsor major business deals, mostly in oil production and exports in the mid-1980s. He became the secret godfather for the economy, among other things. All deals had to pass through Makhlouf, who distributed them among other Alawite and Sunni businessmen in the 1980s and 1990s.

With the generational change in the ruling family and elites, the role of the new generation of official's sons shifted from partnerships in companies to the leadership of the private business sector, especially in the second half of the 1990s. One of the most renowned figures was Rami Makhlouf, an engineer who at the end of the 1990s took over Ramak firm that specialized in duty-free zones at ground ports and airports.

When Hafez al-Assad died in 2000, Muhammad Makhlouf stepped down, allowing for the rise of his older son, Rami, in the business sector. Anisa, Assad's widow, took it upon herself to facilitate and encourage the rise of Rami, her favorite nephew, as she had done previously for her brother.

Rami focused on the promising telecommunication sector. In 2001, the Syrian government granted the company Syriatel and its competitor MTN a build, operate, and transfer permit (BOT), giving them a monopoly over the telecommunication sector and its revenues.

Syriatel's contract formed the foundation from which Makhlouf's diverse businesses and companies expanded. His companies operated in the fields of oil, finances, banking, tourism, and trade, keeping up with the selective economic openness in early 2000.

Some experts believe that this openness shrank the size of the middle class and concentrated wealth in the hands of a small number of people, mainly the Makhlouf family, thus, chipping away at the traditional support base of the regime and the ruling Baath Party and undermining the social contract that prevailed through three decades of Assad reign.

Makhlouf's domination over the Syrian economy reached a level that prompted the United States to impose sanctions against him early, at the beginning of 2008 — three years before the Syrian revolution — as part of the Syria sanctions program that began in 2004.

Political Context

In the 1930s, the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) also known as the Syrian Party, expanded from Lebanon to the Syrian coastal region and the Alawite's mountain region. The expansion is mainly because of geographic location, trade, and openness in those regions, which later became a breeding ground for secular parties like the Baath Party and the Communist Party in the second half of the 1940s.

If the Baath Party believes in Arab unity and Arab nationalism, the Syrian Party is known for promoting Syrian nationalism in Syria, Palestine, Jordan, Iraq, and Lebanon. The party never got into power and existed in secrecy for most of its history.

The Makhlouf family, especially Muhammad and his sister Anisa, were closer to the Syrian Party ideology than to the Baath Party. On April 22, 1955, Colonel 'Adnan Al-Maliki, a powerful nationalist military figure, was assassinated in al-Baladi Arena in Damascus by three men, including Badi' al-Makhlouf, Anisa's cousin. The SSNP was held responsible despite denying involvement in the assassination. The head of the government at the time, Sabri al-'Asali, banned the party, prompting a crackdown on its members. Six months later, a military court in Damascus sentenced to death a number of the Syrian Party's members and leaders, which was the biggest blow to Syrian nationalists since Antwan Sa'ada was handed over to the Lebanese authorities and subsequently executed in 1949.

The party remained banned after the Ba'th Party took control of the government from 1963 to 1970. After Assad assumed power, he relaxed the crackdown because of the influence of his wife, Anisa, on him. The party was then allowed to join Parliament indirectly.

In 2000, Bashar Al-Assad assumed power and married Asma al-Akhras. The political history of her family was unknown and she appeared more focused on economy than ideology. Shafiq, the cousin of her father Fawwaz, was an economy professor, and another relative of hers was a businessman in Homs, while she herself worked at JP Morgan. Her father was a renowned cardiologist in London while her mother worked in the Syrian embassy in the British capital.

In 2011, the Syrian Party was allowed to join the Ba'th Party-led Progressive National Front, an alliance of parties in Damascus, as an observer. There was a common belief that Bashar al-Assad was closer to the Syrian Party's ideology because of the influence of his mother and uncle, which helped the party resume its activities and join Parliament.

Rami Makhlouf is described by people who met him as someone with "absolute belief in the ideology of the Syrian Party." Between 2005 and 2019, Makhlouf played the role of a behind-the-scenes leader for the SSNP. He pushed supporters of the party to assume high leadership positions before being elected to Parliament or appointed to the cabinet. Rami also participated in founding a branch for the party in 2011 and formed a militia under the name Eagles of the Whirlwind that is associated with the party. The militia fought alongside government security forces against the opposition factions. The party participated in the 2012 congressional elections with the support of al-Bustan Foundation, a charity through which Makhlouf has been able to channel funds, and won seats in Parliament. It came as no surprise that many of Makhlouf's supporters posted a whirlwind, the logo of the party, on their social media pages after his last appearance.

Declawing

By the mid-2019 and under the regime's nose, Rami accumulated tools and networks that were not available to anyone else: A historical, tribal, and class heritage, a financial and economic empire, a political party aspiring to govern, a charitable foundation, and an armed militia. Separately, new businessmen and warlords emerged, making their wealth from the fighting between 2012 and 2019 and from circumventing the US and European sanctions.

There were concerns about Rami Makhlouf, his apparatuses, his rivals’ increasing ambitions, regional, and international changes, and tension between Russia and Turkey. Last August, a campaign began to dismantle Makhlouf's networks, including banning certain activities by al-Bustan Foundation and disbanding its military wing, which paid fighters $350 a month -- a hefty sum compared to regular soldiers’ salaries.

In October 2019, the appeal court issued a decision to disband the al-Amana Wing of the Syrian Party, which Rami helped create. The decision excluded the Minister of Reconciliation 'Ali Haydar, who is a member of the party, due to his "friendship with Assad," according to a source in Damascus.

On December 19, a series of decisions were made to freeze the assets of Makhlouf, his wife, and his companies, accusing him of tax evasion. On March 17, 2020, the Ministry of Finance seized his assets because of his ties to an oil company.

The measures taken against Rami Makhlouf included arresting senior employees in his companies and organizations, seizing his assets in Syria, prohibiting state institutions from dealing with him for five years, in addition to a travel ban. He also lost all the security and economic privileges that he enjoyed since 1970 as the nephew of the president's wife.

Clearly Makhlouf is banking on his social, political, and economic stocks to protect him. The regime, however, is seeking to disband Makhlouf's networks and declaw him. This equation can change at any moment if a new factor, from the inside or the outside, emerges.

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Shadow Battles in Syria: Fighting ISIS, Rebuilding the State 

An aerial photograph shows thousands of people celebrating the first anniversary since the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad near The Damascus Sword monument in Umayyad Square, in the Syrian capital Damascus on December 8, 2025. (AFP)
An aerial photograph shows thousands of people celebrating the first anniversary since the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad near The Damascus Sword monument in Umayyad Square, in the Syrian capital Damascus on December 8, 2025. (AFP)
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Shadow Battles in Syria: Fighting ISIS, Rebuilding the State 

An aerial photograph shows thousands of people celebrating the first anniversary since the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad near The Damascus Sword monument in Umayyad Square, in the Syrian capital Damascus on December 8, 2025. (AFP)
An aerial photograph shows thousands of people celebrating the first anniversary since the ousting of longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad near The Damascus Sword monument in Umayyad Square, in the Syrian capital Damascus on December 8, 2025. (AFP)

At the entrances to Damascus branching off the Mezzeh highway, just before Umayyad Square, young men with a quasi-military appearance line both sides of the road, selling flags and banners for “Liberation Day.”

In narrower streets and at intersections leading deeper into the city, they are met by women in long dresses, some with headscarves pulled halfway across their faces. The women drag one or two children behind them and carry loaves of bread for sale, stacking them openly and thrusting them toward passersby and car windows — unwrapped, exposed to diesel fumes and the dust rising from the rubble encircling the capital.

Selling bread in this manner has gradually become a “profession,” largely female, expanding as poverty deepens. Women queue at bakeries to purchase their ration, resell it for a small margin, then return to the lines, repeating the cycle late into the night.

This scene is not confined to Damascus; it recurs across Syrian cities and regions I visited, from Homs and Idlib to Aleppo. Over time, this female presence has become woven into the landscape of a prolonged crisis, a quiet pillar of daily survival.

Widespread destruction

If women’s exhausted faces and roughened hands are the clearest witnesses to a catastrophe now nearing its fifteenth year, the unrelenting destruction bears equally stark testimony. Entire neighborhoods and suburbs, flattened to the ground, ring Damascus, choking it in dust and debris.

The same gray desolation dominates major cities and their surrounding countryside, stretching across vast expanses of the country. Driving more than 350 kilometers without encountering a single intact tree, neighborhood, or home offers a visceral sense of what over a decade of killing, destruction, and vengeance has left behind.

The scale of devastation reflects not only military confrontations or the superiority of one side, but a deliberate effort to annihilate people and livelihoods, to extinguish even the faintest hope of return. What bombs spared was often burned, looted, or rendered uninhabitable. And yet, returns are taking place slowly, haltingly, through sheer individual persistence.

Only a few enclaves have endured in Damascus and its markets, or beyond in certain towns and districts, some even prospering, driven by sectarian calculations or political and commercial interests, most notably those tied to the production and trafficking of captagon.

A view of Damascus, Syria. (Asharq Al-Awsat)

Damascus: The polished façade

Damascus was preparing for exceptional celebrations marking the first anniversary of Bashar al-Assad’s ouster. Preparations were extensive: stages erected, loudspeakers installed, traffic rerouted, and banners raised proclaiming national unity, “One people... one nation”, and announcing that “the dark era has ended.”

Programs circulated via text messages urging citizens to participate and “celebrate freedom and hope... and complete the story.” But which story? The question reverberates through streets where bread is sold on bare asphalt while victory celebrations unfold.

Here, narratives multiply and diverge, sometimes to the point of contradiction, like neighboring bubbles that coexist without touching. A sharp vertical divide in perspectives remains, recalling 2011, when Syrians split to the brink between supporters and opponents, even as official discourse insists on projecting a seamless image of a new phase.

Silent security battle

Behind the celebratory façade, another battle is underway, which is quieter and more complex. “ISIS, especially the muhajireen [foreign fighters], poses our most serious challenge,” a senior Syrian security source who requested anonymity told Asharq Al-Awsat, noting that arrests and “neutralizations” are carried out regularly.

Another source explained that “security operations are conducted with precision and professionalism. Lists of those affiliated with extremist organizations under the broad ISIS umbrella are already in the hands of the security services.”

He added: “We know them individually. We monitor them closely. The former regime left behind an extremely detailed surveillance system that we continue to rely on.”

I met both sources days before the recent Palmyra incident. When it occurred, it appeared unsurprising; officials and those in sensitive positions had anticipated such scenarios as among several looming security risks, especially after Syria formally joined the counterterrorism coalition.

One source summarized these risks as three simultaneous confrontations: “First, the fight against ISIS and its offshoots, handled with extreme caution because it poses a personal threat to President Ahmed al-Sharaa. Second, the confrontation with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which threatens the emerging state and its identity over the long term. Third, a colder, less intense standoff with Israel linked to developments in Sweida.”

In a semi-official assessment, the security source did not rule out that those released from al-Hol camp could become “time bombs,” exploited to destabilize internal security and serve the agendas of extremists rejecting the current transition of power.

Such incidents could also signal abroad that stripping the SDF of its “counterterrorism” duties would be futile, potentially “opening the door to packs of lone wolves.”

Destruction from fighting between the regime forces and opposition is seen in the Yarmuk camp on the outskirts of Damascus. (EPA)

Is a security approach enough?

The challenge confronting the state is not purely a security one, and a strictly securitized approach lacks consensus even within governing circles.

Contrary to those who view ISIS and extremism as a “technical problem” solvable through force alone, a figure close to the political leadership argues that “the core issue lies in absorbing a massive human bloc that spent years outside any normal social framework, without education, stable families, or organized structures of life.”

“The real challenge,” he added, “is integrating them into the idea of the state and rehabilitating them accordingly. Just as these adolescents were once pulled toward a specific form of extremism, today we must work to move them toward a middle ground.”

“If the president says we are leaving a factional phase and entering a state-based one, how does that happen at the grassroots level? Is it merely individual and security-driven, or is it societal as well?” he wondered.

In this light, one observer interpreted al-Sharaa’s statement — “Obey me so long as I obey God among you” — delivered from the Umayyad Mosque on the night of the grand celebration and widely criticized by civil and secular circles, as a message aimed at a different audience: a segment the state seeks to reassure through a religious call to obedience and rejection of rebellion.

If words come easily, lived reality does not.

Security is tightly enforced in major cities, such as Damascus and Aleppo, through heavy deployments and modern technologies, including drones, especially during sensitive periods like mass anniversary celebrations.

Beyond the cities, however, vast rural areas remain largely neglected, marked by immense destruction, extreme poverty, and rampant unemployment. Checkpoints line major inter-provincial roads, but side towns and village alleys are often left to fend for themselves.

Idlib, once cited as an exception for its services and administrative capacity, has lost much of that distinction since liberation. Opening to the rest of Syria exposed the city and its devastated countryside to the demands of ordinary life, revealing governance that had amounted largely to crisis management. That legacy persists even in everyday language: soldiers addressing civilians as “sheikh,” or telling them to “seek God’s help” as shorthand for “move along.”

Between Idlib’s countryside and Aleppo, villages and small towns are known for particular loyalties and affiliations — some far removed from the moderation celebrated on Damascus stages. Their reputations lead drivers to take longer routes considered “safer.”

In this belt, young men, especially the youngest, have long served as fuel for armed factions. In recent years, only Hayat Tahrir al-Sham maintained dominance on the ground.

After the fall of the regime, thousands joined the general security forces or the army, often for lack of alternatives. Many cannot afford to rebuild destroyed homes or recover looted livelihoods; barracks, offering food and shelter, remain preferable to civilian life.

A fabric of clashing identities

These identities crystallized during years of militarization, particularly after 2013, though their social roots run deeper. Today, anyone associated with the new authority is often labeled “Idlibi,” after Idlib — the stronghold of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham for nine years — a term frequently tinged with condescension in Damascus and Aleppo. Understanding the social and economic distinctions among these rural communities helps explain their divergent political and military choices.

Some towns, organized around extended families, land ownership, and later labor migration beginning in the mid-1980s, invested in education and professional paths while maintaining a socially rooted religiosity. These communities had previously experienced nationalist and Arabist currents before Baathist authoritarianism took hold.

Others, smaller towns built around sub-clans, relied on seasonal agriculture and service in the police and security apparatus of the former regime. They welcomed their sons’ joining the Nusra Front when it began recruiting, seeing in it both as an organized military path against Assad and a religious identity long suppressed.

Added to this are vast desert regions governed by tribal structures and shifting systems of mutual aid.

Though all are Arab Sunnis, their behaviors, loyalties, and alignments differed, shaping how radical factions penetrated some communities while failing in others, often setting one group against another.

Syrian security forces detain a suspect during an anti-ISIS operation in the Idlib countryside on December 1. (Syrian Interior Ministry)

Idlib and the keys to Damascus

When security officials say today they know extremists “one by one,” they rely partly on Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s security apparatus and its accumulated knowledge of radical factions it fought in recent years, such as Jund al-Aqsa and the al-Qaeda-aligned Hurras al-Din, along with informant networks.

Idlib remains, to a significant extent, a secure stronghold holding key levers of power. Courts, administrative bodies, and civil registries still operate under the “Sharia courts” established in mid-2013, unlike other regions, especially Damascus, where transactions are centralized.

Sources identify three main recruitment pathways used by ISIS and its offshoots: ideological recruitment, the fastest and most effective, especially among youth who embraced extremism and have yet to absorb Syria’s rapid changes; recruitment driven by money and revenge amid pervasive poverty and lost status; and recruitment among foreign fighters, embittered by abandonment and with little left to lose.

The emerging state and the ‘Sahwa’ model

When President al-Sharaa returned from Washington, he carried a daunting mandate: to “confront and dismantle terrorist networks” linked to remnants of ISIS, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah, and Hamas, according to US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack.

While Israel has targeted Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza, Syria must contend with their residual networks. Yet the greater challenge remains ISIS and its offshoots, fighters who, until recently, were close “brothers in arms” to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

As observers await the form this confrontation will take, particularly in the absence of a unified army with a clear doctrine, Washington’s earlier experiment in post-Saddam Iraq looms large: the Sunni-on-Sunni “Awakening” (Sahwa).

The Sahwa rested on what an informed Iraqi source described as a “coalition of the harmed” from al-Qaeda, centered in Anbar province with its Sunni Arab identity and traditional religiosity. A similar model could emerge in Syria through an alliance of communities damaged by ISIS in the north and northeast, led by the emerging state that wants to fight extremism.

The Iraqi source, who closely followed the Sahwa’s rise and subsequent decline under then Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, noted that tribes around Ramadi, especially al-Bourisha, al-Buallwan, al-Bou Fahd, and to a lesser extent al-Dulaim, formed the backbone of the fight after al-Qaeda devastated their trade and social fabric.

Syria's interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, greets people as he attends celebrations marking the first anniversary of the ousting of former President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus, Syria, Monday, Dec. 8, 2025. (AP)

Though some were coerced into allegiance, clashes never fully ceased, culminating in atrocities such as the massacre of the al-Bu Nimr tribe, where nearly 2,000 men were executed. A Syrian parallel is the al-Shaitat tribe, which resisted ISIS and suffered one of the largest massacres, with around 1,800 young men killed.

Those who joined the Sahwa were required to publicly renounce al-Qaeda and integrate into security forces coordinated with US troops, in hopes of transforming that tribal bloc into a political actor.

From arms to politics

The Iraqi source highlighted a central lesson: despite the Sahwa’s security successes, it failed to transition into meaningful political participation. When its leaders entered elections, they achieved little representation and failed to build durable popular support.

That failure mirrors Syria’s core dilemma today: the collective transition from a factional, militarized reality confined to limited geography toward a state defined by broader political and administrative principles — and, militarily, by the monopoly of force within a single national army.

Between a woman selling bread on a street corner, a young man dancing in a public square, and institutions struggling to impose order and define the state, Syria appears as a country of overlapping bubbles: a glossy façade prepared for celebration, like a carefully designed postcard, and beneath it a fragile social and security depth whose battles remain unresolved.

Features

Iraq’s Dreams of Wheat Independence Dashed by Water Crisis 

A drone view shows a circular wheat field in the desert of Basra, Iraq, November 27, 2025. (Reuters)
A drone view shows a circular wheat field in the desert of Basra, Iraq, November 27, 2025. (Reuters)
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Iraq’s Dreams of Wheat Independence Dashed by Water Crisis 

A drone view shows a circular wheat field in the desert of Basra, Iraq, November 27, 2025. (Reuters)
A drone view shows a circular wheat field in the desert of Basra, Iraq, November 27, 2025. (Reuters)

Iraqi wheat farmer Ma'an al-Fatlawi has long depended on the nearby Euphrates River to feed his fields near the city of Najaf. But this year, those waters, which made the Fertile Crescent a cradle of ancient civilization 10,000 years ago, are drying up, and he sees few options.

"Drilling wells is not successful in our land, because the water is saline," al-Fatlawi said, as he stood by an irrigation canal near his parched fields awaiting the release of his allotted water supply.

A push by Iraq - historically among the Middle East's biggest wheat importers - to guarantee food security by ensuring wheat production covers the country's needs has led to three successive annual surpluses of the staple grain.

But those hard-won advances are now under threat as the driest year in modern history and record-low water levels in the Tigris and Euphrates rivers have reduced planting and could slash the harvest by up to 50% this season.

"Iraq is facing one of the most severe droughts that has been observed in decades," the UN Food and Agriculture Organization's Iraq representative Salah El Hajj Hassan told Reuters.

VULNERABLE TO NATURE AND NEIGHBORS

The crisis is laying bare Iraq's vulnerability.

A largely desert nation, Iraq ranks fifth globally for climate risk, according to the UN's Global Environment Outlook. Average temperatures in Iraq have risen nearly half a degree Celsius per decade since 2000 and could climb by up to 5.6 C by the end of the century compared to the period before industrialization, according to the International Energy Agency. Rainfall is projected to decline.

But Iraq is also at the mercy of its neighbors for 70% of its water supply. And Türkiye and Iran have been using upstream dams to take a greater share of the region's shared resource.

The FAO says the diminishing amount of water that has trickled down to Iraq is the biggest factor behind the current crisis, which has forced Baghdad to introduce rationing.

Iraq's water reserves have plunged from 60 billion cubic meters in 2020 to less than 4 billion today, said El Hajj Hassan, who expects wheat production this season to drop by 30% to 50%.

"Rain-fed and irrigated agriculture are directly affected nationwide," he said.

EFFORTS TO END IMPORT DEPENDENCE UNDER THREAT

To wean the country off its dependence on imports, Iraq's government has in recent years paid for high-yield seeds and inputs, promoted modern irrigation and desert farming to expand cultivation, and subsidized grain purchases to offer farmers more than double global wheat prices.

It is a plan that, though expensive, has boosted strategic wheat reserves to over 6 million metric tons in some seasons, overwhelming Iraq's silo capacity. The government, which purchased around 5.1 million tons of the 2025 harvest, said in September that those reserves could meet up to a year of demand.

Others, however, including Harry Istepanian - a water expert and founder of Iraq Climate Change Center - now expect imports to rise again, putting the country at greater risk of higher food prices with knock-on effects for trade and government budgets.

"Iraq's water and food security crisis is no longer just an environmental problem; it has immediate economic and security spillovers," Istepanian told Reuters.

A preliminary FAO forecast anticipates wheat import needs for the 2025/26 marketing year to increase to about 2.4 million tons.

Global wheat markets are currently oversupplied, offering cheaper options, but Iraq could once again face price volatility.

A person walks along the edge of uncultivated farmland on the outskirts of Najaf, where dry soil stretches across fields left unplanted due to water shortages, in Najaf, Iraq, November 29, 2025. (Reuters)

Iraq's trade ministry did not respond to a request for comment on the likelihood of increased imports.

In response to the crisis, the ministry of agriculture capped river-irrigated wheat at 1 million dunams in the 2025/26 season - half last season's level - and mandated modern irrigation techniques including drip and sprinkler systems to replace flood irrigation through open canals, which loses water through evaporation and seepage.

A dunam is a measurement of area roughly equivalent to a quarter acre.

The ministry is allocating 3.5 million dunams in desert areas using groundwater. That too is contingent on the use of modern irrigation.

"The plan was implemented in two phases," said Mahdi Dhamad al-Qaisi, an advisor to the agriculture minister. "Both require modern irrigation."

Rice cultivation, meanwhile, which is far more water-intensive than wheat, was banned nationwide.

RURAL LIVELIHOODS AT RISK

One ton of wheat production in Iraq requires about 1,100 cubic meters of water, said Ammar Abdul-Khaliq, head of the Wells and Groundwater Authority in southern Iraq. Pivoting to more dependence on wells to replace river water is risky.

"If water extraction continues without scientific study, groundwater reserves will decline," he said.

Basra aquifers, he said, have already fallen by three to five meters.

Groundwater irrigation systems are also expensive due to the required infrastructure like sprinklers and concrete basins. That presents a further economic challenge to rural Iraqis, who make up around 30% of the population.

Some 170,000 people have already been displaced in rural areas due to water scarcity, the FAO's El Hajj Hassan said.

"This is not a matter of only food security," he said. "It's worse when we look at it from the perspective of livelihoods."

At his farm in Najaf, al-Fatlawi is now experiencing that first-hand, having cut his wheat acreage to a fifth of its normal level this season and laid off all but two of his 10 workers.

"We rely on river water," he said.

Features

Report: Assad Returns to Ophthalmology, His Family Lives in Russian Luxury  

Bashar al-Assad with his wife, Asma, walk with their children in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in 2022. (Former Syrian presidency Facebook page/AFP/Getty Images)
Bashar al-Assad with his wife, Asma, walk with their children in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in 2022. (Former Syrian presidency Facebook page/AFP/Getty Images)
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Report: Assad Returns to Ophthalmology, His Family Lives in Russian Luxury  

Bashar al-Assad with his wife, Asma, walk with their children in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in 2022. (Former Syrian presidency Facebook page/AFP/Getty Images)
Bashar al-Assad with his wife, Asma, walk with their children in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in 2022. (Former Syrian presidency Facebook page/AFP/Getty Images)

A year after his regime was toppled in Syria, Bashar al-Assad's family is living an isolated, quiet life of luxury in Moscow.

A friend of the family, sources in Russia and Syria, as well as leaked data, helped give rare insight into the lives of the now reclusive family who once ruled over Syria with an iron fist.

Bashar now sits in the classroom, taking ophthalmology lessons, according to a well-placed source.

“He’s studying Russian and brushing up on his ophthalmology again,” a friend of the Assad family, who has kept in touch with them, told The Guardian.

“It’s a passion of his, he obviously doesn’t need the money. Even before the war in Syria began, he used to regularly practice his ophthalmology in Damascus,” they continued, suggesting the wealthy elite in Moscow could be his target clientele.

The family are likely to reside in the prestigious Rublyovka, a gated community of Moscow’s elite, according to two sources with knowledge of the situation. There they would rub shoulders with the likes of the former Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych, who fled Kyiv in 2014 and is believed to live in the area, according to The Guardian.

The Assads are not wanting for money. After being cut off from much of the world’s financial system by western sanctions in 2011 after Assad’s bloody crackdown on protesters, the family put much of their wealth in Moscow, where western regulators could not touch it.

Despite their cushy abode, the family are cut off from the elite Syrian and Russian circles they once enjoyed. Bashar’s 11th-hour flight from Syria left his cronies feeling abandoned and his Russian handlers prevent him from contacting senior regime officials.

Assad fled with his sons out of Damascus in the early hours of December 8, 2024, as Syrian opposition fighters approached the capital from the north and the south. They were met by a Russian military escort and were taken to the Russian Hmeimim airbase, where they were flown out of the country.

Assad did not warn his extended family or close regime allies of the impending collapse, instead leaving them to fend for themselves.

A friend of Maher al-Assad, Bashar’s brother and a top military official, who knows many former members of the palace said: “Maher had been calling Bashar for days but he wouldn’t pick up.”

“He stayed in the palace until the last second, opposition fighters found his shisha coals still warm. It was Maher, not Bashar, who helped others escape. Bashar only cared about himself.”

“It’s a very quiet life,” said the family friend. “He has very little, if any, contact with the outside world. He’s only in touch with a couple of people who were in his palace, like Mansour Azzam [former Syrian minister of presidency affairs] and Yassar Ibrahim [Assad’s top economic crony].”

‘Irrelevant’ to Putin

A source close to the Kremlin said Assad was also largely “irrelevant” to Putin and Russia’s political elite. “Putin has little patience for leaders who lose their grip on power, and Assad is no longer seen as a figure of influence or even an interesting guest to invite to dinner,” the source said.

In the first months after the Assads’ escape, his former regime allies were not on Bashar’s mind. The family gathered in Moscow to support Asma, the British-born former first lady of Syria, who had had leukemia for years and whose condition had become critical. She had been receiving treatment in Moscow before the fall of the Assad regime.

According to a source familiar with the details of Asma’s health, the former first lady has recovered after experimental therapy under the supervision of Russia’s security services

With Asma’s health stabilized, the former dictator is keen to get his side of the story out. He has lined up interviews with RT and a popular rightwing American podcaster, but is waiting for approval from Russian authorities to make a media appearance.

Russia appears to have blocked Assad from any public appearance. In a rare November interview with Iraqi media about Assad’s life in Moscow, Russia’s ambassador to Iraq, Elbrus Kutrashev, confirmed that the toppled dictator was barred from any public activity.

“Assad may live here but cannot engage in political activities ... He has no right to engage in any media or political activity. Have you heard anything from him? You haven’t, because he is not allowed to – but he is safe and alive,” Kutrashev said.

Assad children dazed

Life for the Assad children in contrast seems to continue with relatively little disruption, as they adjust to a new life as Moscow elite.

The family friend, who met some of the children a few months ago, said: “They’re kind of dazed. I think they’re still in a bit of a shock. They’re just kind of getting used to life without being the first family.”

The only time the Assad family – without Bashar – have been seen together in public since the end of their regime was at his daughter Zein al-Assad’s graduation on June 30, where she received a degree in international relations from MGIMO, the elite Moscow university attended by much of Russia’s ruling class.

A photograph on MGIMO’s official website shows the 22-year-old Zein standing with other graduates. In a blurry separate video from the event, members of the Assad family, including Asma and her two sons Hafez, 24, and Karim, 21, can be seen in the audience.

Two of Zein’s classmates who attended the ceremony confirmed that parts of the Assad family were present, but said they kept a low profile. “The family did not stay long and did not take any pictures with Zein on stage like other families,” said one of the former classmates, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Hafez, once groomed as Bashar’s potential successor, has largely withdrawn from public view since posting a Telegram video in February in which he offered his own account of the family’s flight from Damascus, denying they had abandoned their allies and claiming it was Moscow that ordered them to leave Syria.

Syrians quickly geolocated Hafez, who took the video while walking the streets of Moscow.

Hafez has closed most of his social media, instead registering accounts under a pseudonym taken from an American children’s series about a young detective with dyslexia, according to leaked data. The children and their mother spend much of their time shopping, filling their new Russian home with luxury goods, according to the source close to the family.